Thursday, January 21, 2010

So if Obama's really doomed, a FOX News poll should show him getting his ass kicked by basically every Republican out there, right?

Buried inside the new Fox News poll are some trial heats for the 2012 presidential election that look awfully good for President Barack Obama. Three candidates are tested against Obama: Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Obama smashes them all. He leads Romney by a 47-35 margin, Palin by a 55-31 margin, and Gingrich by 53-29 margin. Each margin includes a healthy lead among independent voters.
The most interesting question:
The more interesting question might be on a three-way race between Obama, one of the unpopular Republicans (i.e., any Republican) and an independent.

When I heard Obama was going to take another swipe at banks today, I dismissed it as another meaningless gesture like last week's TARP tax initiative. Wall Street's been on a streak in the new year, betting big that Scott Brown's win means Obama won't be able to even do the meaningless gestures anymore.

I've also been saying that Paul Volcker is the best weapon Obama has in his arsenal when it comes to doing real reform against the banksters. Obama has been all but ignoring him totally in favor of Larry Summers. Earlier this year I argued Volcker should say "listen to me or I'm out" and like Colin Powell did resign instead of being used as a tool by an administration that didn't believe a word he was saying.

Apparently Obama really did gain one of the lessons of Scott Brown's win this week: Obama has been losing the populist fight on the banksters, so now finally he turns to Paul Volcker.

But Paul Volcker is back. Big time. Reportedly on the margins of the Obama administration even in his current role as an adviser, "the tall guy behind me," in the words Thursday of President Barack Obama, is back on stage figuratively and literally.

As the president announced two major initiatives that would radically change the world of America's big banks, he was flanked by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and adviser Larry Summers. He also had with him two key Congressional leaders, Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.).

But importantly, the president had Mr. Volcker, and he had another regulatory veteran who's been a straight shooter unbound by ideological restraints or misplaced party fealty.

That's William Donaldson, former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. President Obama thanked both Mr. Volcker and Mr. Donaldson for their counsel, which, given the nature of the Obama proposals, was "old school" in more senses than simply a reference to the vast combined financial experience of both men. Agree with it or not, the "Volcker Rule," enunciated by the president Thursday—which would keep a bank from having anything to do with investment vehicles such as hedge or private equity funds— certainly signals Mr. Volcker's return.

It is a fascinating resurrection. Mr. Volcker himself hasn't changed his thinking. What has changed is the environment. The heavy, popular furor as big bank profits and big bonuses are rolled out likely played a role in the new Obama plan. That plan includes flat-out limits on bank size and restrictions on industry consolidation.

I'm happy to say I was wrong. The Volcker rules, such as they are, are a major step towards what I've been saying Obama needed to do since day one: restore the separation between bank and investment house that Glass-Steagall provided.

If you have any doubts as to how concerned Wall Street is right now, the Dow lost over 200 points in its worst day in almost eight months, and its worst two day drop since June, giving back all the Scott Brown gains and more.

On Tuesday, Wall Street was betting on Brown ending Obama's crusade against the banksters for good. They bet and lost yesterday and today. There's a new Sheriff in town, and his name is Paul Volcker.

The problem is, as James Kwak over at Baseline Scnario says, there's even less chance now of this financial reform passing the Republican party's 41 blockade in the Senate. But this means that the Republicans are the party of Wall Street, not the Democrats. And that's what Obama should have done in February.

"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi said. "The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn't like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them."

"In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is," she said. "There isn't a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made."

While she didn't say the option was dead -- "Everything is on the table," she said -- she outlined two very different options for passing a bill.

"There's a recognition that there's a foundation in that bill that's important. So one way or another those areas of agreement that we have will have to be advanced, whether it's by passing the Senate bill with any changes that can be made, or just taking [pieces of it]," Pelosi said.

"We have to get a bill passed -- we know that. That's a predicate that we all subscribe to."

Just not this bill. If only we had a bill to pass...

Once again, the plan needs to be:

The House passes the Senate bill.

The Senate improves the bill drastically in reconciliation with 50+1 votes.

Obama needs to act like he's in charge of the Democratic party and get this done.

The problem with campaign finance reform laws is that it's essentially asking lawmakers to hamstring the very people who write the campaign finance reform laws from raising money to be elected to become lawmakers.

Even better, just punt to the Judicial who then decides that corporate citizens have the exact same free speech rights as voters, and that money counts as free speech. Campaign finance reform is basically dead at this point, and corporations can simply donate millions to whoever they want, directly.

The ruling was a defeat for the Obama administration and the campaign finance law's supporters who said that ending the limits would unleash a flood of corporate money into the political system to promote or defeat candidates.

The ruling transformed the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in future presidential and congressional elections, which already have broken new spending records with each political cycle.

The justices overturned Supreme Court precedents from 2003 and 1990 that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

This is pretty brutal. The 2010 campaign is now going to be a storm of unlimited cash from companies basically buying candidates. It also means that corporate advocacy for specific candidates is not only possible but the norm.

SCOTUS Blog has the decision here. The fifth vote along with Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia was Anthony Kennedy, who writing the decision voiced:

"Our nation's speech dynamic is changing, and informative voices should not have to circumvent onerous restrictions to exercise their First Amendment rights"

Because being able to buy candidates is the American way, dammit. Stopping corporations for directly funding candidates is "onerous".

Distinguishing wealthy individuals from corporations based on the latter's special advantages of e.g., limited liability, does not suffice to allow laws prohibiting speech. It is irrelevant for First Amendment purposes that corporate funds may "have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas." Austin, supra, at 660. All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech.

In other words, the corporate citizen has unlimited access to the political process, even though the public can vote and the corporation cannot. But the corporation can now influence millions of voters through direct campaign advertising.

The Republican upset in the race for the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly half a century by liberal Edward M. Kennedy reflects a huge victory for opponents of U.S. President Barack Obama - and also for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Scott Brown defeated once-favored Martha Coakley for the Massachusetts seat even after U.S. President Barack Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save her candidacy.

Over the past nine months, Netanyahu has managed to curb pressure from Obama, who enjoys a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Now, however, Obama will be more dependent on the support of his Republican rivals, the supporters and friends of Netanyahu.

No Israeli politician matches his steps to the political goings-on in the U.S. as much as Netanyahu. He dragged out negotiations over the settlement freeze and then decided it would last for 10 months and end in September - just in time for U.S. Congressional elections in which Democrats are expected to suffer heavy losses.

Netanyahu understood he must withstand the pressure until his right-wing supporters recapture a position of power on Capitol Hill and work to rein in the White House's political activities. The election in Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in America, will from this moment on be a burden for Obama.

Tell me he's wrong. Quite frankly, it's brutally honest to the point where it seems to be outright bragging. But in every way this analysis is correct. The Israelis are clearly expecting a much more favorable climate for gaining concessions from the US now. No doubt backing off Israel will be offered by Republicans as one of the first "bipartisan efforts" that President Obama can make to show he "heard the message of Massachusetts".

Via John Cole, the entire transcript of President Obama's interview with ABC News actually does demonstrate that he's aware of the issues. I'm not sure if he's aware of what the Democrats need to do to fix them, however. This passage did give me hope:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it sounds like you're saying -- no second thoughts on your fundamental strategy?
OBAMA: Well look, what I would say is that first of all, I wish we had gotten it done faster because I think that if we had gotten health care done faster, people would have understood the degree to which every single day George, health care is part of a broader context of how am I going to be able to move the middle class forward in a more secure and stable way, and I think that what's happened is, is over the course of this year, there's been a fixation, an obsession in terms of the focus on the health care process in Congress that distracted from all the other things that we're trying to do to make sure that this economy is working for ordinary people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that going to continue, though? You're now in a situation, coming out of Massachusetts, you don't have 60 votes in the Senate right now. What is the strategy on health care going forward?
OBAMA: Well, here's my belief, that this is not a problem that's going to go away. This was a problem whether or not we did health care this year. If we hadn't taken on health care, then what people would be asking right now is, why is it having promised to do something about that during the campaign, that we're seeing millions of people who have lost their health care and their premiums go up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they're saying now, they want your health care plan to go away. It's just not popular; the majority are opposed.
OBAMA: Well, here's what I know is that when they actually find out what's in the proposals for insurance reform, for making sure that we're making health care more affordable, those specific provisions are actually very popular.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made that speech in August.
OBAMA: Well, and one of the things that I have learned in Washington is you have to repeat yourself a lot because because unfortunately it doesn't penetrate. But I am determined to make sure that the issues that are making middle class families, ordinary Americans less secure and less stable are fixed.

What the President does understand is that the Village is part and parcel of the problem. Good for him.

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With Republicans controlling the House and Senate and the Trump Regime now in charge of the Executive, there's still a crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.

Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions. Dangerous levels of Stupid.

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